Cryptocurrencies set to emerge as new asset class

Eoghan Leahy, Technical Analysis, Alternative Investments and Quant Trading Specialist at Bloomberg, doing a presentation at a Cryptocurrency seminar at the W Hotel in Doha yesterday.

DOHA: With the introduction of some financial derivative and legal tools in the US and other markets with regard to Cryptocurrencies trading, Bitcoin and some other Cryptocurrencies (which are based on block-chain technology), are emerging as new asset class, noted a senior official of Bloomberg LP at an event held here yesterday.

However, in terms of the volume of Bitcoin and other assets, it is still in infancy. Bitcoin’s asset value stands just a fraction of other assets in the mainstream. There is a huge difference in the volume.

For instance, the combined value of Bitcoin assets today stands between $350bn and $400bn, way far low compared to gold, which has a total asset value to the tune of $7 trillion.

Last year Bitcoin suddenly drew everybody’s attention when the prices touched up to $20,000 levels. This happened because people rushed to get access to an exchange and new money came to the market. But it was still a retail based-currency. However, some policy decisions on the part of exchanges in the US provided greater legitimacy to the currency and gradually changing the dynamics.

“Since May exchanges opened in the US and helped it to bring Bitcoin to the main stream somewhat, but it was still been a retail-based currency. But when we had the introduction of Futures (a financial tool for hedging risks involved with the high price volatility of Bitcoin) we saw a few days of enthusiasm followed by a huge sell-off, which cut a lot of the buy-and-hold players off side. This led to a change in the whole dynamics,” noted Eoghan Leahy, Technical Analysis, Alternative Investments and Quant Trading Specialist at Bloomberg, during “The Bloomberg Cryptocurrency Seminar,” held here yesterday.

He added: “The meteoric rise of Bitcoin has opened the door for a new asset class of Cryptocurrencies. The sharp selloff since the introduction of the Bitcoin Futures suggests that simple buy and hold strategies may no longer prosper.”

He also said that the Cryptocurrencies market is getting more sophisticated in different ways.

The main agenda of the seminar included discussion on the methods of accessing Cryptocurrency data, data visualization to compare Cryptocurrencies; correlation analysis; strategy backtesting and optimisation.